A lot of manufacturers and distributors run part of the business on a Microsoft Access database that somebody built years ago. It tracks orders, or inventory, or quality records, or all three, and the person who built it may not even work there anymore. It still works, mostly, and everybody is a little afraid of it. Norsoft migrates and replaces databases like that, along with the other old systems a business depends on, from Mankato, Minnesota.
Why it gets risky
Access was built for a handful of people on one network. When a growing business leans on it, the cracks show up in familiar ways. It slows down or locks up when several people use it at once. The file gets corrupted and someone restores last week's copy. It will not run properly for people working remotely. And the logic inside it, the forms, queries, and macros, exists nowhere else and is understood by nobody.
None of that means you have to throw it out tomorrow. It means you should know what is in it and have a plan before it fails at a bad moment.
Three ways to handle it
Move the data, keep the screens. The tables move to a proper database like SQL Server or a cloud database, and the existing Access forms keep working on top of it for now. It is the fastest fix for slowness, locking, and corruption, and it buys time.
Replace it with a web application. The data and the logic move into a real application people reach from a browser, in the office, on the floor, or from home. This is where most businesses end up, because it removes the single-file risk entirely.
Fold it into a larger system. If the Access database is really a homemade piece of an ERP, it may belong inside one. That is a bigger piece of work, which we do in stages.
What we do first
Before anything moves, we back it up, get a copy running somewhere safe, and document it: every table, form, query, macro, and report, what each one does, and who uses it. Old databases are full of logic that looks like clutter and turns out to be how something important gets calculated, and the migration goes wrong when that gets missed.
Then we move the data and check it, record by record, against the original. Most businesses run old and new side by side for a period so nobody has to trust a cutover on faith. We do the same with other legacy data, including file-based systems and old ERPs, and with the connections between systems, such as EDI.
A real example
A plastic extrusion manufacturer on a legacy ERP that could not keep up with the factory. We replaced it with a custom system, moved the operation onto it, and the clean, centralized records later strengthened the company's valuation when it sold. Read the case study.
This is probably you if
- An Access database runs orders, inventory, quality or scheduling
- It slows down, locks, or corrupts when several people use it
- The person who built it is gone and nobody understands the macros
- People cannot use it from home or from the floor
More on the other problems we solve for plants is on our manufacturing page, and if the old system is something other than Access, that is our takeover work.
Tell us what the database does and how many people use it. We will tell you which of the three paths makes sense. Reach out here or call (507) 388-4748.